Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865Quotes
An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.
—Frederick the Great, c. 1770To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.
—Quintus Fabius Maximus, c. 203 BCWhat, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
—Frederick Douglass, 1855Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
—Vegetius, c. 385Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.
—Arthur Miller, 2001You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.
—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843